Worth The Price (Hart's Fall, Montana) (13 page)

“I trust you. It’s every other male I don’t trust. You’re the prettiest girl in this whole town.”

“I’m not. Zoe is. She’s the model.”

“Your friend’s job means nothing to me.” He leaned closer until their toes touched. “Was Hart hitting on you?”

“It was nothing like that. He came to ask me a question, saw Zoe and decided to mock her recent falls during a fashion show in London. He probably saw the pictures in the newspaper.”

“What’s he got against her?”

“I honestly wish I knew. The only thing I know for sure is that Zoe heard Austin talking about her one day. He called her stupid.”

“And she hates him for that?”

“You don’t know her that well, so I guess I can understand why you wouldn’t see it as a big deal. Zoe is my best friend and I love her to death, but she isn’t exactly the smartest person I know. She knows it too, that’s the hard part. As for whatever is going on between her and Austin, I won’t even try to guess, because I’m completely in the dark. All I’m certain of is that I heard his voice in the background one day when I called Zoe. She was in New York at the time, too. She hasn’t said a word to me about it, so I never asked.” Danika held out her hands and sighed. “Either way, I think Austin realized this wasn’t the place to unleash whatever pent up anger he has for Zoe.”

A slow crooked smile warmed his lips. “Did you practice those Tae Kwon Do moves on him? Is that why Hart stampeded out of here so fast?”

Groaning, she slapped him on the shoulder. “I never should have said anything to you about it.”

“I like hearing those odd little details about you.”

Her cheeks heated. He was giving her that intense “Brandon stare,” making her feel awkward. She shifted her feet, remembering where they were. “So, what are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were busy?”

“I am. I’ve still got a ton load of work waiting for me at the ranch, but I wanted to stop by and see if there was anything I could help out with.”

“Most of us are about to call it a wrap for this evening.”

“Does that mean you’re ready to go home?”

“I’m ready.” The thought of home, her and Brandon alone made tiny shivers dance along her skin.

Worth the Price

Greeted by a warm summer’s breeze, Danika dashed outside of the house. It was a Saturday afternoon. Brandon and a few of the workers who rotated the weekends, were working the cattle. In the hours between she’d cloistered herself in the kitchen, determined to impart whatever minute trace of culinary skills she’d inherited from her mother to prepare what she hoped was an authentic Irish dish to surprise her husband.

She cut across the path from the corral to the vibrant meadow that flourished a short distance from the stable. She spotted Brandon right away. He was walking with a rope slung across his broad shoulder and a pair of chaps over his faded jeans. Finn, a sable Border collie with a white ring around its eyes, and also one of the four “cattle dogs” used on the ranch to help work the cattle, trotted beside him with his tail wagging.

Her sex clenched in response to the sight of her husband. It was nearing the two-month mark to the date in June she had become a married woman. She was happier than ever. Brandon was the most attentive husband she could have ever wished for and she prayed to God it would remain as such.

“Brandon!” She raced toward him. A gust of wind gathered, causing the hem of her skirt to billow and fan upward. Uncaring, Danika continued her pace. She watched as he lowered his hand to ruffle Finn’s shaggy head. His lips moved, although she was unable to decipher what he told the dog. Whatever he said met with the animal’s approval, because he yipped and scampered away in the direction of the barn, where no doubt Brandon had a treat already laid out and waiting for him.

“Glad to see me?”

“Always,” Danika said, unsure if she was breathless from running toward him or being near him. Standing on her tiptoes, she brushed her lips over his. Brandon responded in full and deepened the kiss as one hand kneaded her bottom.

After the kiss ended, she looked around, relieved that they hadn’t just provided illicit entertainment for the ranch hands. “Did the workers leave?”

Brandon nodded. “Sanchez and Maines are still over at the pasture. There’s a patch of tansy and Canadian thistle that needs to be weeded before the cattle start to graze on it and get sick. The others…” He paused, narrowed his eyes at her then flicked away something in her hair.

“What have you been up to?” He held up a finger dusted with flour.

“It’s a surprise or was supposed to be a surprise if I’d thought to check the mirror before I left the house.”

He toyed with a strand of her powdered hair. “And I thought you coming out here to meet me was the sweet surprise.”

She blushed beneath her brown skin, made darker under the summer sunshine. It was hard to believe this was the same man who would barely utter anything except for “yes, no, maybe”. Joy swelled in her heart for the confidence Brandon displayed in himself and their relationship. On impulse, she snatched the Stetson from his head. She twirled the hat around her fingertips, hips swishing to her own beat and arched her brows in mischief.

“You want your hat back, Irish?”

His lips twitched in amusement. “I have two more on the top shelf in our closet. Same color.’”

She wagged a finger back and forth. “That’s not how the game is played.”

“Game?”

“Yes, game,” she replied, popping the wide brimmed hat on her head. “You know, kind of like tag. I have something you want, so you have to chase me. Catch me to get it.”

He blinked in surprise and inched closer until his lips whispered against her ear. “If I catch you,
Cailín
it’s no’ the hat I’ll be wanting.”

Her entire body shivered. She knew he had purposely and wickedly, at that, spoken with an undiluted lilt, and all because she’d let it slip out to him one night the power his accent had on her level of arousal.

“What…what will you want?”

His gaze drifted over her frame as the wind blew again, hiking her dress even higher, exposing her panties. She felt the breeze whip across her bottom, heightening her arousal.

“There’s nothing you can think of?” he asked, desire dripping from each word.

The raw need in his eyes made her heart flip. She spun around in her sandals and took off running, one hand holding on to the hat on her head. Chancing a look backward, she giggled as Brandon flung the ropes he had been holding to the ground and gave chase.

She never stood a chance. Within seconds, he had caught up to her. He wrapped his arms around her like a blanket, cushioning her fall as they toppled onto the grass.

Pinned beneath her husband’s rock-hard frame, Danika pouted. “You were supposed to pretend to let me get away.”

“I don’t know how to play games, remember?” He ran his hand along her inner thighs, trailing upward until the seam of her underwear was held within the crook of his finger.

“I did just say that, didn’t I?”

Brandon eased her legs apart. “You did. But tell me, does it feel like I’m playing a game?” His hardness jerked against her sex.

She thrust her hips to meet him. Words failed her. She simply shook her head in response then parted her lips as he draped her leg around his waist. “You remember how loud you screamed last night, so much I had to cover your lips with mine because I feared you’d hurt your little throat?”

Heat traveled up her neck. What a wicked memory it was. Last night he had awoken her in the middle of the night. A decadent shiver danced along her spine as she recalled how hard he had ridden her and, as he was so quick to remind her, how raw her throat had felt after he’d wrung an intense orgasm from her for the second time that night.

“I remember. I remember everything we do together.” There were so many things about her husband ingrained in her memory. So many wonderful things, she thought, eyelids fluttering close. She nuzzled his neck. “Let me taste you.”

His forefinger slid across her lips. “We’re out in the open.”

“You said the ranch hands had left already. We’re alone, Brandon. It’s all right.”

A low groan rumbled from his chest. He stood, surveying the meadow to make sure they were alone.

Danika removed her sandals then laid them at her side. She wanted to feel the soft grass underneath her feet while pleasuring her husband.

“Danika.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I…”

“Shh.” She kissed below his abdomen then allowed her fingers to hover over the black buckle on the belt, securing his tan leather chaps into place. There was a lot to be said for living in near isolation with her husband, Danika thought. There would be no passersby to witness her expression of love and affection.

Positioned against the ancient trunk of a maple tree, Brandon had his head thrown back with a glazed over look in his eyes as he peered down at her. The heavy rise and fall of his massive chest was visible through his shirt.

After removing his chaps, she traced the pad of her fingertips along the front of his jeans. She unfastened his pants and raised her lashes, curious to see if her husband had quit breathing altogether from the tension in his firm thighs.

She was wrong. Brandon threaded his fingers into her hair. Allowing her hand to linger over the waistband of his briefs, Danika cast her gaze upward, overwhelmed by the need to look her husband in the eyes before performing such an intimate act. He tightened his fist around her hair and gave a sharp nod.

Her heart thundered as a rush of heat pulsed through her clitoris. Danika slid the briefs below his hips and bit her lip in ecstasy. She wrapped her fist around his heavy shaft and kissed the engorged tip.

Above her, Brandon sucked in a hoarse breath. “Danika,” he groaned. “Just like I taught you, baby.”

She swirled her tongue along his broad length, leisurely drawing him deep inside her mouth. Danika wanted to please him in all the ways he had taught her, hours into their marriage. She worshipped his shaft with her lips and cinched her arms around his buttocks until she felt his entire body stiffen. A guttural cry ripped from his throat as he succumbed to the pleasure she was all too willing to give.

“Come here.” He tugged her upright and brought her down to the grass with him. He rolled to his back so that she was now lying on top of him, dress bunched around her waist. “Are you happy with me?” he asked, caressing the dewy curls above her sex.

Danika brought her lips to his chest. “I am,” she said, from the bottom of her heart. She rolled her hips to make it easier for him to remove her panties.

His fingers squeezed gently on her hips. “Then say it. Say you belong to me and not just because we signed a piece of paper.”

“I belong to you, Brandon Sharpe. Always.” On a luxurious sigh, Danika lowered herself onto his penis.

Bodies entwined, she clung to her husband and dug her fingers into the hard flesh on his shoulders. Her body shook as they moved in unison to the erotic rhythm of her hips bouncing up and down.

Some time later, after they were both sated, she wound her arms about Brandon’s neck. She could hear the steady pounding of his heart below her ears. Had there ever been a time she felt so close to another person? With absolute certainty, she knew the answer was never. Floating on a cloud of absolute joy, she mulled the idea of revealing her suspicion to Brandon that she was carrying his child. On second thought, she decided against it. A late period was not unique to her cycles and intuition which, truthfully could have arisen from her desire to give him the family he never had was simply not enough to confirm her suspicions.

She chained the secret to her heart. It was better to wait until she had a crystal clear answer from her doctor than to push open that unknown door with Brandon.

They lay together in quietness until her eyes flew open. She suddenly remembered the meal she had prepared for him. The same meal that was now growing cold on the stove.

She jerked her head up and pinched Brandon on the shoulder. “You made me forget all about my surprise for you.”

“Are you saying you minded what we just did?”

“No, but maybe if you weren’t so good at it…”

“You’re complaining?” A smile played around his lips.

Realizing she had backed herself in a corner, Danika ducked her head in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. “I can barely think straight because of you sometimes.”

“It’s the same for me too.”